plastic hearts and sugar stars
by mew-tsubaki
Summary: Oneshot, post-series, mangaverse. She was born with all of her old memories intact. It's awful, really. *Chibiusa-centric* .::GGE '14 entry 4—for remi::.


**plastic hearts and sugar stars**

A Sailor Moon oneshot

by mew-tsubaki

Note: The _Sailor Moon_ characters belong to Takeuchi Naoko-sensei, not to me. I draw more for this fandom than I write for it…that needs to change. :L Read, review, and enjoy! *Written for **reminiscent-afterthought** for the Gift-Giving Extravaganza 2014 forum with the request that I write a gen fic involving/about any major senshi. I went for Yam-Head. B)

- ^-^3

She's thirteen going on fourteen. Well, 913 going on 914, thank you very much, but she's still just becoming a teen when compared to normal life expectancies.

And maybe it's simply general malaise or maybe it's puberty hitting her like a ton of bricks, but Princess Lady Serenity doesn't feel like much of a princess at all.

The days run together: Tutoring from Mercury in the morning until the afternoon, domestic skills taught by Jupiter during lunch, and physical training with Mars and Venus in the evenings. Any free second is spent with her mother, learning how to run a kingdom and how to control the power of the Silver Crystal.

"It isn't all fun and games," the queen says. "Small Lady, you'll be queen someday." Her blue eyes soften as if she knows so many more things than her daughter does.

But that's not necessarily true as "Small Lady" mumbles under her breath day after day, "I wish somebody would call me 'Chibiusa' once more…"

- ^-^3

She doesn't feel like a real princess, not when her father regales her with tails of their youth.

"It was a while before I warmed up to your mother," he says for the millionth time (and there's no exaggerating when they seem to live forever). "But once I found out her true identity… Well, I couldn't exactly keep my own to myself." His eyes get wet as he turns wistful, but Chibiusa doesn't push to hear more of the story, not like when she was a child.

The thing is, she knows these stories. Inside and out. Up and down. Left to right. Right to left.

Why has it never occurred to her parents that, simply because of their answer to Guardian Cosmos' question, their rebirth and her subsequent birth wouldn't change anything? Why should they not think that this is the same girl they got to know once before?

Why has no one ever asked her if she recalls her old life?

- ^-^3

"You're concentrating too hard," her mother tells her one day.

Chibiusa pouts, but she's edging on furious. Her mother makes it look so easy—just as she had when she still paraded around as Sailor Moon. "I just—I don't get it."

The queen takes her Silver Crystal from her daughter's hands and holds it above the hopeful subject. He is an old man with some illness Chibiusa can't recall, and her mother manages to heal him in record time and still look regal doing it. As the man is escorted out, jumping for joy and singing the queen's praises, she passes the crystal back to Chibiusa. "It's not about 'getting it' or concentration, Small Lady."

Chibiusa holds her tongue. It'd be bad to correct her mother in front of a live audience.

"It's about breathing, relaxing, and letting the crystal's power flow into you." Even as she says it, the crystal glows in the queen's hand, and she smiles. She is brighter than even the crystal in this room, and Chibiusa envies the shine of her mother. "Think of yourself as a power conduit. Let your body be used by the Silver Crystal."

"So, play host to it in the same way Hotaru played host to Mistress 9?" the princess mutters.

The queen's eyes narrow, but she doesn't spare a glance at her daughter. Hmm. Maybe Chibiusa was heard after all. …and, granted, that was a bit of a low blow, to remind her mother of that time…but still!

"I'll practice more with my Pink Moon Crystal," Chibiusa fibs as she curtsies by way of excusing herself.

The queen says nothing. She was good at raising a child, but she's still a century too early to handle a burgeoning teenager. Especially one who knows she's lived once before.

- ^-^3

Diana is, and always will be, her best friend.

Chibiusa knows she'd been close to Hotaru before, but there's no Hotaru in this peaceful age. There's only the slumbering Sailor Saturn, not to be called upon save for the next great catastrophe.

(And while Chibiusa knew Momoko and Kyuusuke back when she'd been a civilian, once upon a time, they don't know her in this life. Or, they do, but only as the princess of Crystal Tokyo. It hurts so much, sometimes, to think that she can't have their friendship in this lifetime, too. She'd give anything to trade the sugar star candy the kitchen will give her sometimes for the plastic heart jewelry she once made in art class with Momoko, which of course Kyuusuke had to critique.)

Still, she's got Diana, who shares her secret. So Chibiusa can confide anything in her cat guardian.

"Mama worked for it, you know," she tells the kitten as they recline in her bed with loose-leaf sketchbooks covering the blankets. Chibiusa never did give up her love of art. "She had villains to fight. But I don't. I haven't had the chance to be Chibi Moon in this lifetime." Chibiusa rolls over and almost squishes Diana when she scoops up the gray fur ball for a snuggle.

"It's not about the battles you fight," Diana says wisely. She has to pause to pur. "It's about how you handle yourself now."

"Yeah, but… I've not even met my protectors yet, even though I _knew_ the Sailor Quartet before. I mean, what good am I to them if I never have the chance to lead them? How can I make a good queen if I've not done even half the things Mama or Papa have?" She takes the Pink Moon Crystal from her pocket (she'd love to hear her mother scold her for that again!) and shakes her head, placing it on her pillow. "Is it bad to miss my old history?" she asks, not really expecting a reply.

And Diana doesn't give her one. She, too, misses certain things about the past. Being out in the field with her parents. Guarding the Gate of Time for Pluto. Going to the houses of the different senshi and spending some quality time with their laps—er, with them.

Chibiusa knows all of this because she's the same way. She misses having Ami-chan correct her math homework. She misses sipping tea with Rei-chan. She misses eating freshly-baked cookies with Mako-chan while watching TV dramas. She misses playing nurse to the others with Minako-chan. Haruka-san, Michiru-san, Setsuna-san, Hotaru-chan—she simply _misses_ them because they aren't even _around_ in this lifetime. No, they're just guardians of the outer Solar System once more.

(In times like these, she's glad no one calls her "Chibiusa." Then she can think that those happy memories never happened and that she's only missing something she imagined, which makes it hurt a little less, and makes it a little more bearable to learn to become the next ruler of this century.)

- ^-^3

**Whoa. Okay, yeah… It's been a long while since I wrote for the BSSM fandom, but I miss it. Buying the reprinted manga brought back so many memories, and now I'm thinking more about 30****th****-century life… Actually, this fic gave me some more ideas, though I might swing by the Sailor Moon Fanfiction Challenges forum here on FFN (*shamelss advertisement*) for prompts… I hope you enjoyed this, remi! It's VERY different from what I normally write, especially because Chibiusa annoys me half the time… But I like this idea. :]**

**Thanks for reading, and please review! And swing by the SMFC if you didn't know about it before—the more, the merrier!**

**-mew-tsubaki :}**


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